While electric vehicles may be gaining in popularity, many aspects of electric vehicle technology still may carry drawbacks capable of improvement.
A challenge with electric vehicles may be the gearing trade off. Low gearing (motor spins faster to achieve a wheel speed) may be good for starting torque to provide good acceleration and uphill or upwind capability. Using only low gearing may limit the speed of the system once the torque requirements are fulfilled. High gearing (motor spins not as fast to achieve the same wheel speed) may provide higher speed range with poorer starting torque and acceleration. High gearing may also stress a motor more when starting, because low rpm high electric currents may be sustained longer and may heat up the windings and perhaps exacerbate brush wear. Decreasing the duration of high currents may enhance motor life. Fewer motor revolutions over a distance traveled also may prolong motor life.
While transmissions (changing the ratio of motor to wheel revolutions) may be effective at adapting a motor to varying torque requirements, they often may require more mechanical devices to provide the variable coupling and thus may require a shifting mechanism. Such a system may be relatively complex and mechanical in design. In cars, manual shifting may have been removed with automatic transmissions, but the elimination of manual shifting may result in more complex controls and coupling apparatus. Simplicity may remain a valuable goal. Both reliability and user experience may benefit from simple implementation. Simplicity may be one reason that cruiser bicycles and fixed gear bicycles may be gaining in market share.
Electric bicycles may require a throttle which typically may be designed into each bicycle. Throttle designs generally may be specific to one bicycle design and its specific throttle, brake levers, and gear shifters. There may be no need to design for moving the throttle to another bicycle in such implementations.
Bicycle conversion kits may be increasing in popularity too. These kits may include conventional throttles which may mount on handle bars, perhaps sometimes requiring removal of rubber grips to slide over the handle bar, or perhaps using a thumb lever that may be ergonomically challenging with gear shifters, or possibly not fitting well around handle bar extensions. These kits may require time and skill to install on a bicycle and may not be made to be quickly moved from one bicycle to another.
Powered bicycle trailers, like bicycle conversion kits, may need a throttle that can be installed on multiple types of bicycles. Furthermore, the trailer may be able to be quickly moved to another bicycle and associatively, the owner may need to uninstall the throttle and move it to the other bicycle too.
A problem may be that bicycle handle bars may host a wide variety of grips, handle bar extensions, bells, lights, brake levers, and gear shifters (twist, thumb and finger, thumb only, and brake lever actuated). Adding yet another function to the hand area may be physically constrained and ergonomically challenging. Making a simple throttle that can work on a multitude of bicycle designs may be even more challenging.
Products like bicycle conversion kits and powered trailers may create an unanswered need. These products may only sell well into a subset of installed base bicycles, the subset on which the products may be able to be simply installed. A low cost throttle design that fits a wider variance of bicycles and can be adjusted for various hand sizes and hand position preferences may greatly expand the number of bicycles which can be sold. Additionally, a design which requires no tools for installation may be valued.
An analogous example may be hitches for bicycle trailers. Trailers may require a hitch that is compatible with a wide variety of bicycles in use. A hitch design that only works for a few bicycle styles may limit sales, while a design that fits many bicycles may expand sales. A useful feature for a bicycle trailer may be a trailer that can simply be transferred from one bicycle to another because the hitch is universal or portable. Such hitch designs may need to accommodate a range of designs including fixed frames, full suspension frames, quick release axles, and axle/nut designs, as well as bicycles with and without rear bicycle racks. Analogous features in a throttle design may be lacking in conventional bicycle designs.
Prior designs for throttles may have been intended to be mounted to a bicycle and remain, or perhaps sometimes be transferred as a part of more intensive installation process. Conventional designs may include: (1) twist throttles, which typically may require removal of rubber grips to provide a bare bar for sliding the throttle over the end and fastening with screw—these may not work with twist shifters and curved handlebars; and (2) thumb lever switches that may fit over round handle bars and may fasten with a screw or two—these may not be compatible with thumb shifters, because there may be two thumb levers in a crowded space. Conventional designs may employ potentiometers (variable resistors), hall-effect, or optical sensors which may be configured to create variable voltage signals or variable resistance signals for controllers. Thumb actuators, when placed on a bicycle with thumb shifters, may either conflict with the gear shifter or may make one of the thumb devices more difficult to use. They may not work well at all with twist gear shifters. The twist grip actuator may require removal of the handlebar grip for installation, and also may not work in tandem with a twist gear shifter.
A distinct challenge of electric vehicles may emerge from the use of electric parts and assemblies in addition to normal mechanical parts like wheels, chains, gears and brakes. Effective technicians well versed in both electronics and mechanics may be rare, and so troubleshooting and repair of malfunctioning electric vehicles may be rarely sufficient for owners and service centers.
While sales of electric vehicles may have increased over the last few years, home mechanics and bicycle shop mechanics may not necessarily have the skills and tools to deal with these products. Bicycle mechanics may be well trained in mechanics, but few may have electronic technician skills. Voltmeters and ammeters may be rare in bicycle shops as well as homes. Methodical troubleshooting guides may be rarely available and may be of little help to those not trained in basic electronics. A clever technician may be required to effectively troubleshoot and repair an electric bicycle or similar electro-mechanical device. And to confound the issues more, various types of motors (brush and brushless, and hub motors) and controllers may be becoming more prevalent.
When an electric vehicle stops functioning, nominally skilled owners and shop mechanics may not know if the problem is a bad battery, broken wire, or worn out motor. Many owners may be stuck with no easy way to get help. Units may be discarded prematurely out of frustration and further purchases may be delayed or dismissed. Many consumers may choose to not buy an electric vehicle when they discover that they may require days to repair.
The most prevalent state of onboard diagnostics may be indicators on electric bicycles with a series of LEDs that report the charge level of batteries. Some electric bicycles may provide error codes for a few components when there is a hard failure.
Electrical components may have been part of bicycles for decades. Lights, generators, speedometers, even complex bicycle computers may be sold and serviced by bicycle stores. Troubleshooting and repair may be based on quick (less technician time may save money and improves customer satisfaction) and simple techniques, such as perhaps swapping parts until the bad part is identified. These techniques may be designed for mechanics that do not have an electrical background. Electric bicycles and other similar vehicles may be more complex, with multiple interactive parts like motors, batteries, controllers, throttles, and other elements. Swapping parts often may be difficult, expensive, and slow, because such parts often may be more integrated into the unit. And sometimes a component may work well on the bench (not having to push a rider and bicycle) and may not perform well on the road. Swapping parts and road testing may be laborious and even more time consuming.
No Trouble Found (“NTF”) may be an expensive and frustrating issue in the service business. Intermittent failures, like a wire with damaged insulation infrequently touching metal, may lead to NTF when the service technician tests the unit while the wire is not touching metal. When a product fails and the customer brings it in for repair, and then it works fine once the repair technician sees it, then the technician may have no idea what is wrong and the customer may be vulnerable to it failing again. Repeated instances of this may be especially difficult. Sometimes a technician may change some parts just to show good effort to the customer or because they may be able to guess that a certain part is the problem. These problems often may lead to expensive repairs that may not be required, and may leave the unit in a state of intermittent functionality. The issue may continue inefficiencies, because the factory may receive replaced parts that are not failed and may not be able to identify the right issue to redesign.
Conventional practice for troubleshooting electric vehicles may be exemplified by bicycle shop mechanics that service state of the art electric bicycles. They may check battery level, and then may try to guess which component to replace and test to see if it fixes a problem. Most bicycle technicians may not use voltmeters or ammeters. In more unique situations, a technician trained in simple electronics may use voltmeters, ammeters, and a series of replacement parts, to identify a problem. Technicians may try methods like: measure battery voltage; wire the motor directly to the battery to see if it spins; or replace a throttle to see if the new one works. Local bicycle shops whose customers bring in electric bicycles or scooters may either call in a qualified technician, train an employee, or have to deny service to the customer for fear of disappointing them. The current state of diagnosis in bicycle shops may illustrate how technologies and practices in other fields may not have been applied to electric vehicles.
Bicyclists oft may need to carry things with them, and these things can be of notable volume or weight. Panniers or saddle bags may be examples of how riders cope with these needs. Bicycle trailers may be employed in many forms including trailers for children, cargo, and pets. These trailers may be single form designs perhaps with an intended purpose, but perhaps often used for other purposes. For example, a child carrying trailer may be used for carrying cargo. Conversely, however, a trailer designed for carrying cargo may be unsafe to use to carry children.
An unmet need may be to be able to re-purpose a trailer for another use without having to purchase an entirely new trailer. Few people may want to have, for example, three separate trailers for different uses like carrying a child, carrying cargo such as hardware or lumber, and commuting with a professional-looking trailer.
The foregoing problems related to conventional electric vehicles may represent a long-felt need for an effective solution to the same. While implementing elements may have been available, actual attempts to meet this need may have been lacking to some degree. This may have been due to a failure of those having ordinary skill in the art to fully appreciate or understand the nature of the problems and challenges involved. As a result of this lack of understanding, attempts to meet these long-felt needs may have failed to effectively solve one or more of the problems or challenges here identified. These attempts may even have led away from the technical directions taken by the present inventive technology and may even result in the achievements of the present inventive technology being considered to some degree an unexpected result of the approach taken by some in the field.